I just don‘t like the longer ones. Not that the shorter ones are way easier, but for me personally it helps to know that I am through the „hardest“ one or the one that I like the least at the beginning. If I have 9 workouts in my calender, I try to bring in a bit of variation. I don’t like to do 9 similar workouts.
The power is slightly higher the shorter the intervals are. But you have to figure out on your own what intensity you can hold.
Don‘t follow any % of whatever recommendation for these kind of intervals. That‘s also the reason why it‘s recommended to do it without ERG mode. Just do it as hard as possible.
I don’t give 3 days in a row quite as often as I used to, but still a fair bit. The idea behind starting long is to take advantage of being fresh, since these efforts are maximal the fatigue builds pretty quickly. Something else that’s changed since those podcasts came out is that I also look for an interval range where someone can perform best, generally thinking of 4-6min, 3-5min, and 2-4min as ranges.
I might have said exactly this? Might not? There’s nothing about in relation to max HR anyway, since that can change quite a bit based on training status, fatigue, hydration, etc. so I don’t like to have an absolute number in mind. I just like to see a consistent pattern of HR through the intervals. Example:
She hits 177-179bpm consistently, though max HR for the last year is around 200bpm, it’s rare and there’s no consistent trackable relationship between max HR on super hot days or while doing off the couch testing (where most people usually see their max HR for the year in the fall) and max HR while doing these efforts. Hope that explains my thought process a bit better.
Not entirely sure I had a conscious thought process, things evolve over time. That’s a problem with not having a “thing” is it’s free to change as more experience and new information comes in, and I don’t even realize it’s happened until someone asks me about something from a few years ago. Not a great answer, sorry about that. Maybe part of it is fatigue management? Might be that I’ve been giving more doubles? Different ways of blocking up aerobic stress during a week or month? Your guess is as good as mine.
So I might ask you or anyone reading the same question. Do you feel there’s benefit to doing certain workouts back to back? What do you feel like is better to hit fresh vs what “feels more aerobic” to paraphrase something I hear from clients all the time?
I think it depends on the athlets ability to recover if he can handle these 3 in a row block without compromising quality.
I would look at the available data outputs. Can I still spin the high cadences, do I have comparable power values, is my heart rate response similar. I also evaluate RPE, how I feel during the day. I also track morning HRV. All these metrics help me to make the decision to push through or take an easy day.
If you can not recover enough then you may compromise quality and better distribute the block into smaller chunks where you can recover in between.
I agree that I wouldn‘t recommend such a block as a blueprint or „the thing“ for everybody.
Rather it‘s something you can experiment with and be willing to make adjustments. Nobody has the same training history nor recovery circumstances
Gave the high cadence a shot!
Wow - That made a huge difference in heart rate and perceived effort. My heart rate definitely rose faster during the course of the interval and I consistently hit higher max heart rates. The perceived effort also felt higher. Power on the other hand was significantly down versus when doing the same workout at my self selected “natural cadence”.
I don’t know if this is good or bad, but I’ll do this VO2 block in this manner and see what happens!
Some observations during the block which I want to share:
I really like the 3min intervals. They make me suffer, give me a lot of TiZ but do not completely destroy me.
I did:
5x4 5x3:30 6x3
5x3:30 6x3 6x3
6x3 6x3 6x3
Hart starts
I did all workouts on my Kickr Core.
I needed 1-2 intervals to find the correct gear for the hard starts.
I push hard within the first seconds (~200% of FTP, hard but not an all out sprint) until the flywheel spins at ~140 rpm. I can hold this for about 20 seconds and then shift one gear up to be at ~120 rpm. During the interval the rpm went down to ~110 or whatever I‘m able to hold.
I had the impression that I saw a slight difference when I further decreased to 105rpm in my heart rate. So I tried to stay at least at 110.
Please see these values as descriptive. You have to find your own ranges.
I just want to highlight that you don‘t have to fixate a target and hold it until you blow up.
In the past it took me a long time to convince myself to do the intervals without ERG mode. But they feel so much more on point.
In ERG mode I had the impression to start a bit too easy just to be able to finish the interval at the set wattage.
Without ERG mode you constantly surf the edge. You can always drift slightly downwards, and just hold whatever you can hold at the moment.
Heart rate
During the block I saw quite the same heart rates.
For whatever reason in the 8th workout the heart rate was 3-4 beats down. I put out the same wattages and breathed as usual. On the 9th and last it was up again.
So don‘t fixate too much on heart rate.
Supplement only easy rides
After the second block I did one tempo ride as my legs felt very good and I couldn‘t resist. I should have taken my own advice seriously to stay with easy rides as it led to some fatigue which slightly affected the last block. Fortunately I could push through the whole thing.
I did the three workouts on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. Fortunately there were not many family obligations so I had some more time to have some naps and recover.
Now it’s time for some rest.
Thanks to @kurt.braeckel for giving very valuable and detailed advices here. It helped me a lot. (You are a beast with your massive VO2max block )
I’ve always found the trick with VO2 intervals is to do the ones you least like, or haven’t done for a while.
Like long intervals like 5 minutes, do short intervals like 60 / 60 or 30/ 30. Like short intervals or done a recent block, do some long intervals. Finding 30 / 30 or 60 / 60 aren’t raising your heart rate up to 90-95% max in later sets? Reduce the recovery period so 60 / 30s, 40/ 20s, 30 / 15s.
Don’t get good at just one type of VO2 interval or duration setup.
As for progression, you can work with the number of intervals, the length of those intervals, and the recovery between them. With short intervals it is easiest to add extra intervals to sets. Just completed 4 x 9 x 30 / 30, why not try 4 x 10 X 30 / 30. With longer intervals you can try reducing recovery between them or extend the length of them a little. Managed 6 x 3 mins , try 6 x 3 mins 15 sec keeping same recovery, or do 6 x 3 mins again but knock 30 seconds off the recovery between intervals.
Lots of ways to do it, just don’t make it monotonous with same interval type in every block you do.
As for intensity , I do it on resistance and feel may way into the right power during first set / intervals. Somedays my VO2 interval average might end up 120% of FTP, other days I might be able to average 130% of FTP.
Plus remember anything above your threshold will get you to VO2 max oxygen rates, it’s just a question of time if your recoveries between intervals aren’t too long.
Some context:
35yrs old - 3yrs of self-coached structured training. I went through all the known phases like too high FTP settings, overtraining, plateau. I had a very consistant last season but haven‘t seen a FTP increase for more than a year. I already believed I reached my potential with given volume (7-9 h per week).
Haven‘t done much threshold intervals last year as they caused muscle issues (most likely I did them slightly over FTP).
Last November I did my first „real“ FTP test (KM baseline 3 test). Based on that I did 9 weeks of threshold progression (2 sessions per week) until 2x35. After a rest week I did the described VO2max block.
Results (75kg):
5 min power: 406 W - went up from 386 W
FTP: 320 W TTE 42 min - went up from 307 W TTE 51min
I still can‘t believe the bump I got but I‘ll take this
I will now do a threshold progression mixed with over/unders (95/105) before the season starts in April.
I „only“ did one workout per day on three consecutive days. I aimed for around 15-20min of time in zone (e.g. 6x3min, 5x4min) for each of these days.
If you haven’t done such a block before, start rather cautious. Listen to your body and read what others have reported in this and other posts. I‘m not a coach and just do my own experiments.
I’ll undoubtedly end up swapping things around once I get a feel for it. Feedback from anyone welcome. At least I’ll have plenty of cookies to fuel me.
One specific question if anyone has thoughts: how much easy volume do you do on the side, and how easy? I’m thinking day off or very easy ~30 minute spin the day before, 3 days vo2, then 3 days low endurance or recovery (1-3 hours?) to keep volume from going through the floor. But maybe very low volume is fine during this high intensity process?
)
